School holiday spending

Well, it's Day 2 of winter school holidays. 

I thought it would be interesting to post what we have planned and the cost of school holidays when we are at home.  Over the years I expect that while cheap right now, school holidays will become more expensive with each year and as TootToot becomes a teenager and is less satisfied with free (or inexpensive) activities and entertainment.

TootToot was sick last week and not at school for the whole week. Instead of being happy and content for the first week of school holidays almost immediately she gave the usual school holiday war cry of "I'm bored". The weather hasn't been co-operative and it's been so cold and miserable that outside play hasn't been an option.  Is this boredom because she was sick or is it because she's getting older and getting her grumpy pants ready to wear for adolescence?

Now, how do we entertain an already sick of being at home, bored eight year old without blowing the budget?

We allow TootToot to choose one special activity each school holidays and she can take a friend to do it with if she wants. This time she chose to go bowling with GuitarMan. Just her and Dad and that's nice. 

We are extremely lucky that Nan (my Mum) is able to look after TootToot for two days each week and that certainly cuts our school holiday costs in half. We're also fortunate to have kids a similar age to ours living on either side, and TootToot will play with them on holidays and weekends as well.

Here's our rough plan. I haven't included weekends as we'll do the usual stuff like horse riding.

Week One:

Monday - Day with Nan

Tuesday - hanging with GuitarMan. Two games of ten-pin bowling in the morning, a hot dog each, a drink and $5 of game tokens. $35

Wednesday - spend day with Nan. Collect a free Wednesday movie from the OOVIE Kiosk to watch

Thursday - Day with Mum. Go to a birthday party at lunchtime. Present is in 'present box' so nothing to be spent. TootToot's friend Rapunzel will arrive at dinner and stay over until Friday afternoon.

Friday - If weather is still horrid, will do one of the craft activities we have lying around.  I think I might get the girls to carve some apple people which they can decorate at Rapunzel's house next week. If weather not too bad we'll head off to the Botanic Gardens with a packed lunch and do a school holiday activity for $3.30 for each girl.

Total cost for week $41.60

WeekTwo:

Monday - Day with Nan

Tuesday - Day with Mum. Girls Day. We usually choose to stay in our PJs all day and just chill. Eat some chocolate and watch one of TootToot's DVDs and snuggle in my bed. GuitarMan often comes home on Girls Days to find us fast asleep in our bed.

Wednesday - Day at Nan's

Thursday - TootToot will spend the day at Rapunzel's. I think Rapunzel's Mum has promised to take them to see Shrek. I'll send along $20 for popcorn and a drink for the girls.

Friday - Day with Mum. We'll visit cousins in the morning and after lunch spend some time at the library.

Total cost for week $20

I'll post an update at the end of school holidays and compare how we really did compared with our plan.